Supporting evidence-based design

The design of healthcare environments is complex and challenging. Issues to be addressed include the number and variety of users (patients, visitors and staff); the constantly emerging technological changes to support diagnosis, treatment and support services; the high costs involved in providing such services and the nature of the service, which is to care for people’s health and well-being when they are most vulnerable. In healthcare there is no room for mistakes. Architects, engineers and healthcare planners do their best in creating design solutions that mitigate the negative impacts that the facility might have upon its users. Several solutions about infrastructure design have been developed around the world through the years and the amount of information currently available is vast, but what does really work?